BEYOND MOUNTAINS: THUNDER EGG CONSORT

Evocative music for strings, piano, and electronics by Bunch, Campbell, Dvořák, and Tabakova. Presented through the Lacroute Composer Readings & Chamber Music Mentorship Program.

Delkin Recital Hall, Vivian Bull Music Center | 7:00 PM

Saturday, September 20

Thunder Egg Consort at Rose Villa (Portland)

Anthea, Jason, Kenji and Monica play Brahms, Bunch, and Bartok at the Rose Villa.

Thunder Egg Consort at Mirabella (Portland)

Anthea Kreston (violin), Kenji Bunch (viola), Jason Duckles (cello) and Monica Ohuchi (piano) team up to play some of the great piano quartet repertoire as well as music by living composers.

Thunder Egg Consort - Musica Camerata Salem

Performers: Anthea Kreston – Violin, Kenji Bunch – Viola, Jason Duckles – Cello, Monica Ohuchi – Piano

Program:
Reinhold Gliere: 8 Pieces, Op.39 (selected), for violin and cello
Henri Vieuxtemps: Elegie, Op.30, for Viola and piano
Taraf de Haïdouks/Kenji Bunch: A la Turk, for Piano Quartet
Antonin Dvorak: Piano Quartet No.2 in E flat Major, Op.87

Delgani's 11th season opens with Tapestry of Sound, a program of intricate beauty, emotion, and complexity. Pianist Maria Garcia joins for Brahms' Piano Quintet, often considered the pinnacle of his chamber music. The first half of the concert features Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz's luminous Quartet No. 4 (1951), alongside a piece selected by our new violist.

Delgani's 11th season opens with Tapestry of Sound, a program of intricate beauty, emotion, and complexity. Pianist Maria Garcia joins for Brahms' Piano Quintet, often considered the pinnacle of his chamber music. The first half of the concert features Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz's luminous Quartet No. 4 (1951), alongside a piece selected by our new violist.

Delgani's 11th season opens with Tapestry of Sound, a program of intricate beauty, emotion, and complexity. Pianist Maria Garcia joins for Brahms' Piano Quintet, often considered the pinnacle of his chamber music. The first half of the concert features Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz's luminous Quartet No. 4 (1951), alongside a piece selected by our new violist.

Delgani's 11th season opens with Tapestry of Sound, a program of intricate beauty, emotion, and complexity. Pianist Maria Garcia joins for Brahms' Piano Quintet, often considered the pinnacle of his chamber music. The first half of the concert features Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz's luminous Quartet No. 4 (1951), alongside a piece selected by our new violist.

Delgani's 11th season opens with Tapestry of Sound, a program of intricate beauty, emotion, and complexity. Pianist Maria Garcia joins for Brahms' Piano Quintet, often considered the pinnacle of his chamber music. The first half of the concert features Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz's luminous Quartet No. 4 (1951), alongside a piece selected by our new violist.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22

HOLLER AND STOMP: THUNDER EGG CONSORT

Music inspired by dance from Brahms, Bunch, Campbell and Hiromi. Presented in partnership with the Lacroute Composer Readings & Chamber Music Mentorship Program.

Delkin Recital Hall, Vivian Bull Music Center | 7:00 PM

Delkin Recital Hall, Vivian Bull Music Center | 7:00 PM

Seven Deadly Sins

Storm Large, Portland’s "favorite songstress”, wows you as she explores the world of sin! The Seven Deadly Sins, no less. Reprising one of her signature roles, this working girl moves across America to help her greedy family build their little house back in Louisiana, accompanied by the jazzy sounds of the Swinging ‘30s. Plus, hear music from the Oregon Symphony’s first concert in 1896 and new works by Portland composers – including a jazz piano concerto inspired by Langston Hughes and the friendship between the composer and pianist.

Love Abounds explores the many facets of love—romantic, devotional, familial, and divine. Featuring a trio of vocalists from Portland’s Resonance Ensemble, the program spans centuries, beginning with the 12th-century music of Hildegard von Bingen, and continuing through Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Caroline Shaw, and David Lang.

Love Abounds explores the many facets of love—romantic, devotional, familial, and divine. Featuring a trio of vocalists from Portland’s Resonance Ensemble, the program spans centuries, beginning with the 12th-century music of Hildegard von Bingen, and continuing through Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Caroline Shaw, and David Lang.

Love Abounds explores the many facets of love—romantic, devotional, familial, and divine. Featuring a trio of vocalists from Portland’s Resonance Ensemble, the program spans centuries, beginning with the 12th-century music of Hildegard von Bingen, and continuing through Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Caroline Shaw, and David Lang.

Love Abounds explores the many facets of love—romantic, devotional, familial, and divine. Featuring a trio of vocalists from Portland’s Resonance Ensemble, the program spans centuries, beginning with the 12th-century music of Hildegard von Bingen, and continuing through Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Caroline Shaw, and David Lang.

Love Abounds explores the many facets of love—romantic, devotional, familial, and divine. Featuring a trio of vocalists from Portland’s Resonance Ensemble, the program spans centuries, beginning with the 12th-century music of Hildegard von Bingen, and continuing through Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Caroline Shaw, and David Lang.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 4

New student compositions from the music technology class and the Lacroute Composer Readings & Chamber Music Mentorship Program, featuring the Thunder Egg Consort.

Delkin Recital Hall, Vivian Bull Music Center | 7:00 PM

Beethoven’s Eroica

A most heart-stirring concert awaits you, portraying vastly different approaches to grief and memory. In the “Eroica,” grief turns into fury, when the original dedicatee, Napoleon, crowns himself emperor and the enraged Beethoven now celebrates only “the memory of a great man.” From two bolts-out-of-the-blue chords to exhilarating finale, the Symphony’s majesty and drama, extraordinary scope, and bold harmonies all proclaim a new era in music. Turning his grief into sorrow, Berg inscribes his heartbreaking Concerto, sensitively performed by our concertmaster, “To the memory of an angel”—a vivacious 18-year-old girl struck down by polio. He paints her portrait in the first movement, and, in the emotional heart of the Concerto, incorporates Bach’s chorale, “It is enough; Lord, if it pleases you/Unshackle me.” 

Jewish Memory begins with arrangements of niggunim, traditional wordless chants. Shulamit Ran’s Glitter, Shards, Doom, Memory (2014) commemorates those lost in the Holocaust. Mieczysław Weinberg, who escaped Nazi-occupied Poland for the USSR, became a colleague and close friend of Shostakovich. His String Quartet No. 6, composed shortly after his escape in 1945, concludes the program.

Jewish Memory begins with arrangements of niggunim, traditional wordless chants. Shulamit Ran’s Glitter, Shards, Doom, Memory (2014) commemorates those lost in the Holocaust. Mieczysław Weinberg, who escaped Nazi-occupied Poland for the USSR, became a colleague and close friend of Shostakovich. His String Quartet No. 6, composed shortly after his escape in 1945, concludes the program.

Jewish Memory begins with arrangements of niggunim, traditional wordless chants. Shulamit Ran’s Glitter, Shards, Doom, Memory (2014) commemorates those lost in the Holocaust. Mieczysław Weinberg, who escaped Nazi-occupied Poland for the USSR, became a colleague and close friend of Shostakovich. His String Quartet No. 6, composed shortly after his escape in 1945, concludes the program.

Jewish Memory begins with arrangements of niggunim, traditional wordless chants. Shulamit Ran’s Glitter, Shards, Doom, Memory (2014) commemorates those lost in the Holocaust. Mieczysław Weinberg, who escaped Nazi-occupied Poland for the USSR, became a colleague and close friend of Shostakovich. His String Quartet No. 6, composed shortly after his escape in 1945, concludes the program.

Jewish Memory begins with arrangements of niggunim, traditional wordless chants. Shulamit Ran’s Glitter, Shards, Doom, Memory (2014) commemorates those lost in the Holocaust. Mieczysław Weinberg, who escaped Nazi-occupied Poland for the USSR, became a colleague and close friend of Shostakovich. His String Quartet No. 6, composed shortly after his escape in 1945, concludes the program.

Sibelius & Grieg

Grieg’s beloved and unabashedly Romantic Piano Concerto, performed by Joyce Yang, dances and dazzles and reflects a time of personal happiness in the composer’s life. A combination of beguiling melodies and bravura fire, it found inspiration in the rhythmic patterns of Norwegian folk dances. Maestro Danzmayr also leads Stenhammar’s Second Symphony, a Romantic Swedish jewel not heard nearly often enough. Plus, Sibelius’ stirring The Swan of Tuonela joins this Nordic musical banquet, inspired by scenes from Finnish mythology. 

It Must Be: How do composers grapple with the end of life? Beethoven’s final string quartet asks, “Must it be?” and answers with a resounding, “It must be!” In contrast, Britten’s String Quartet No. 3 (1975), composed shortly before his death, leaves more questions than answers. Haydn’s unfinished final quartet opens the program.

It Must Be: How do composers grapple with the end of life? Beethoven’s final string quartet asks, “Must it be?” and answers with a resounding, “It must be!” In contrast, Britten’s String Quartet No. 3 (1975), composed shortly before his death, leaves more questions than answers. Haydn’s unfinished final quartet opens the program.

It Must Be: How do composers grapple with the end of life? Beethoven’s final string quartet asks, “Must it be?” and answers with a resounding, “It must be!” In contrast, Britten’s String Quartet No. 3 (1975), composed shortly before his death, leaves more questions than answers. Haydn’s unfinished final quartet opens the program.

Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony 

There’s nothing like hiking across moors and encountering castle ruins to ignite the creative process—as Mendelssohn experienced it on a tour of Scotland. Holyrood Castle (where Mary Queen of Scots was crowned) inspired the mysterious mood of the Third Symphony’s opening. But the mists ultimately lift in the sunny, lively finale. Plus, Portland favorite Conrad Tao dazzles in Mozart’s 21st Piano Concerto, with its slow movement once described by biographer Maynard Solomon as “an entire movement of unrelieved, time-stopping beauty…for something just short of eternity.” 

Ravel & Saint-Saëns

A bracing whack from the percussionist’s “slap stick” launches Ravel’s Concerto on an effervescent romp, evoking the Harlem jazz clubs he visited with Gershwin. Riffs from the brasses and piano fireworks make for a breathless dash to the finish. Ravel’s lush Daphnis et Chloé opens with a radiant sunrise—golden strings, shimmering harps, bird calls—and ends with an orgiastic paean to love. 

Copland & Rachmaninoff

Fasten your seatbelt as Alessio Bax tackles Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, a creation of massive power and drive and one of the hardest-to-master works in the repertoire. After its premiere in New York City, a critic wrote that “its great length and extreme difficulties bar it from performances by any but pianists of exceptional technical powers.” Its quiet start leads into an astonishing unleashing of notes and hurtles to a riveting conclusion. Copland’s Third Symphony also was first presented in the U.S. Its spirit is undeniably “American”—vital, optimistic, and big-hearted—triumphantly exclaimed in the finale’s stirring “Fanfare for the Common Man.”